The Wedemeyer Family

Thursday, Nov. 15, 2007

There are good border moments and there are bad ones, sometimes both within the same moment or one shortly after the other.

“Is there any penalty for skipping to the front of the line by driving into the opposite lane of oncoming traffic? In Galveston, there’s a $100 fine for skipping the line to the ferry. They don’t put up with that,” I asked the U.S. Customs inspector after he had inspected us. We had waited in a medium-sized line on International Bridge No. 2 to get our chance to speak with the officer.

It was Sunday night. We waited about a half an hour in the plodding line while three SUVs buzzed by on the left going against light traffic bound for Piedras Negras, Mexico. The first two vehicles seemed a pair, but the third, a Jeep Grand Cherokee, seemed like a hesitant copycat, trailing behind. I honked twice as the Jeep passed. The passenger gestured out his open window with an upward swing, I am not sure what.

“No, we really can’t control what goes on there because that’s not us. You know Bridge No. 1? We tried to get the people to stop behind the speed bumps to wait their turn. But they don’t. People don’t listen,” said the Customs officer with a shrug—an agent within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

I turned the key in the ignition. I always turn off the car at the inspection booth to save gas and relieve the officers and K-9s from the exhaust pipe. But this time, all the electrical devices in the car remained on—the dome light (Ale had been reading a book while we waited in line), the radio, the headlights. Nothing. No ignition. Dead. Never happened before in the 2003 Mitsubishi Lancer four-door sedan with a four-cylinder engine and 117,000 miles.

The officer pushed the car to a roll and I coasted off the slight rise down into the first parking spot to my right in the secondary inspection area. The secondary inspectors barked at me to drive down to them at the far end of the area. I barked back in Spanish without thinking, “¡NO JALA!” and then I felt awkward for yelling at U.S. Customs officers in Spanish.

I turned the key a couple more times, pumped the gas. Nothing. I opened the hood and banged on the battery terminals with a tire iron. No good. I walked down toward the officers I had yelled at. They seemed oblivious to me and didn’t look up from the older red Pontiac they were inspecting. I kept going to the steel building with the open door. I peeked in, saw a row of pump shotguns leaning in a rack along the back wall. I announced my presence to the two officers in dark blue uniforms, “Hello officers, could I get some help? My car died and I was wondering if you could give me a jump?”

An older, portly man with a salt and pepper goatee rose from his desk where he was eating tacos. He walked outside and glanced at our car at the far end of the area.

“We used to have a charger, but I don’t know where it is now,” he said, in no hurry to find it or any other solution.

“Do you have cables?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“You don’t have cables? You can’t jump me?” I asked, starting to get annoyed.

“Nope, all our vehicles are parked over there,” he motioned into the dark distance as if it were too far.

“What about that one right there?” I asked motioning to the brand new Dodge Durango. New white paint with a wide dark blue band across the front door with the DHS official emblem and crest. Very sleek. It was parked, empty, motionless and cold.

“No way. We couldn’t even use that,” replied the officer.

“I’m a tax-payer,” I replied.

“So am I,” he said as if it were relevant. I should have asked for his name. I didn’t. It was pointless and we were still stranded.

“So what should I do?” I asked pragmatically.

“Ask one of these people that are coming through,” he said motioning to the steady stream of diverse vehicles slowly entering the United States after waiting half an hour in line to pass inspection.

I walked back to the car, exasperated, but calm enough and anxious about approaching strangers in that draconian ambience. I had played futbol llanero (amateur soccer) that morning and had left on my shorts and jersey. I looked sporty but strange—a blond, bearded white man in soccer get-up in a sea of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans.

I went car-to-car, “¿Tienen cables?” An old, full-size van full of older señoras compassionately shrugged a collective “No,” and rolled onward without stopping or even voicing a reply. The third vehicle stopped to help. A young man in an old mini-van with his wife and kids in the back. They were headed to the carnival in the Eagle Pass mall, he told me later when I asked him if they were in a hurry, after we had finished the job half an hour later. Fernando was his name, he told me when we shook hands before he left. He objected when I reached into my wallet, so I quickly substituted my business card and told him to call if he needed anything.

Fernando did not have cables either, so he offered to remove his battery and connect it to our car if I had the tools. Luckily I did. I had my toolbox and socket set in the trunk. We worked loosening the nuts that fastened our respective batteries. He worked fast and confidently while I worked rushed and hesitant, but we worked together as a team. His battery was too large to plump down into the gap where my battery had been seconds earlier. We were at a loss but failure was not an option even thought I considered waving him onward out of guilt. We had gone too far, invested too much effort.

My connections would not reach both terminals but he could connect one. I told him if we could just connect the positive terminal, all we would need to do is connect the negative terminal to the chassis, which might be closer. The light bulb flashed—figuratively—because the battery was dead. We could use my steel wrenches as conductors. I took two of my biggest Craftsman—a 15mm and 14mm, my bicycle wrenches, and placed the closed end around the negative terminal. It fit snug. Fernando took over and held the two wrenches together to reach the loose wire connection below.

“Arrancala,” he ordered. I did as he said and the car started on the first try. “Echale gas par recargarla,” he said. With the car still running and me holding the accelerator somewhat steady, Fernando reinserted my battery (Dan told me months later that if one can remove the battery without the car dying, then the alternator is good, and it’s a bad battery). Ale placed her foot over the console from the passenger’s seat to push the gas pedal so that I could get out and help finish up.

Fernando put his battery back in the mini-van and we shook hands. He asked me if we were returning from church in Piedras Negras. “No,” I replied, “just visiting my suegro.” Yet another example of the local assumption that I am a missionary and the benefit of their goodwill building over decades. “Muchas gracias,” I said, and Fernando’s señora smiled from the backseat as if it had been a pleasure to help despite the inconvenience.

They pulled away and we sat for a couple more moments, “recharging.” We pulled away and I looked toward the officers. I did not see any outside. I wanted to shake my head at them slowly in grim resignation and disappointment.

The sad irony. The Department of Homeland Security. The first time I need their direct assistance, in their own federal installation where they are ready for a small scale invasion, and nothing. No aid for a citizen in need. Nothing but a lost battery charger, a row of shotguns and a cold SUV. They are planning to spend over a billion dollars to build a border fence. It’s so messed up. Sure, I can see their perspective, even if they can’t because of their sheer callousness, mediocrity and ineptitude. They couldn’t help me because they need to stay vigilant for contraband, illegal immigrants, terrorists and danger. Stay alert to protect me from that potential threat as I figure out how to fix my car on my own. That’s why the official SUV was off-limits—in case they need it for a high-speed, rugged pursuit.

On the other hand, motorists’ cars must die frequently in the bottleneck that is the international bridge. It behooves the agency to have a remedy to keep the steady stream steady, smooth and orderly. No doubt that’s why they had had a battery charger at one time before one of the agents borrowed it for personal use and forgot to return it.

That night was a turning point in my respect for those guys. Until then, I gave them the benefit of the doubt. They were just doing their job, and it’s an important job. Sure, I’d heard horror stories, but I hadn’t seen it firsthand. But then I get two lackluster responses in one night: first the inspector who shrugs off line-skipping despite my parting words that an incident will happen one hot summer day, before my final parting words that my car is dead. And the second officer who shrugs off my request for assistance. Refers me to the steady stream of strangers. I could have written a letter to the supervisor, Secretary Chertoff, U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, President Bush, ad nauseum. I didn’t, but still might. They should have battery chargers at every bridge.

The agents have tunnel vision, for better or worse, in their line of work—just like much of the customer service here. No independent thought in a nonstandard situation. No extra effort to help out the customer. “Sorry sir, it’s the system,” say the bank tellers and cell phone reps. The customs agents know their routine questions: US Citizen? What are you bringing back from Mexico? What was the purpose of your visit to Mexico?

I always looked forward to the questioning as I walked across the bridge alone, among strangers, or drove through the remote Border Patrol checkpoints on lonely highways. They cared who I was and what I was doing, when no one else did.

I was disappointed, but I appreciated the irony in a sardonic, masochistic and helpless way. Yet good “border moments” can follow the bad, and one did thanks to Fernando. The incident was not really a true border moment in that I wasn’t dumbstruck by the moment and its introspective borderness. I was just angry, then relieved. No quiet reflection on the sense of place where two worlds violently collide yet peacefully merge.

Jacobo slept mostly, I think. No peep from the backseat except for a brief exchange in which Ale confirmed that something was wrong with the car.